THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507060454
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY BARRETT R. RICHARDSON
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
ROBERT E. LEE
A Biography
EMORY M. THOMAS
W.W. Norton. 472 pp. $30.
During the first week in May 1870, an ailing Robert E. Lee arrived in Portsmouth by train from Wilmington, N.C., winding up a trip south during which he sought to restore his failing health. A cannon boomed a salute, and crowds cheered the Confederate general on his walk from the train to the ferry to Norfolk, where on June 7, 1865, a Federal grand jury had indicted him for treason.
After visiting the Norfolk home of Dr. William Selden, Lee left May 5 on a steamer up the James River to Brandon plantation, and thence to Shirley, the childhood home of his mother. Five months later, he died quietly after a stroke, probably never uttering the deathbed words attributed to him - ``Strike the tent.'' He was buried in a coffin that had been ``rescued'' after a flash flood washed it away from an undertaker.
These vignettes, colorful and close to home, are among the jewels in Civil War historian Emory M. Thomas' new biography, Robert E. Lee. Offering a new perspective on an old, familiar subject, Thomas treads a middle ground between Douglas Southall Freeman's apotheosis and more recent image-shattering revisionism. Thomas' exhaustive yet highly readable biography attempts ``to review and rethink Lee alive'' because ``history needs Robert E. Lee whole.''
The result is a gripping, flesh-and-blood portrait of a man who is enigma, war hero and demigod.
Thomas, a University of Georgia history professor, lived in Richmond as a youth and was awed by Freeman's daily radio news commentary. But as an adult scholar, he is skeptical of some of Freeman's conclusions about Lee. Peeling away the the general's aura, Thomas examines Lee, the man, and finds a remarkable human being - lacking feet of clay but still riddled by inconsistencies.
For the Civil War aficionado, Thomas' biography provides a refresher course in the many campaigns and battles that involved Lee. But, because much of Lee's character and personality was molded by prewar events, Thomas delves thoroughly into this earlier time; it is surely the most scintillating part of the book. He concludes with Lee's postwar presidency of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University.
Lee's family consisted of ``Light Horse Harry,'' a profligate father he never knew; Ann Carter, a well-born, pious mother; ``Black Horse Harry,'' an adulterous half brother; Mary Custis, a wealthy, sharp-tongued wife who proved a liability, being both spoiled and helpless; and seven children who were never able to escape the shadow of their devoted but larger-than-life father.
Lee pursued a career that provided him with a broad perspective on leadership but little preparation for battle. After graduating second in his class from West Point without a single demerit, he became a successful military engineer who helped build Fort Pulaski near Savannah, Ga., Fort Monroe and Fort Wool, commanding Hampton Roads in Virginia; and he changed the course of the Mississippi River to render it navigable at St. Louis.
He later spent 20 months of service in the Mexican War as a noncombatant, where he learned an important lesson: A small army can defeat a larger opponent by taking risks and using its ability to maneuver. After more than 25 years in the Army, Lee made a critical shift, transferring from the Engineer Corps to the Cavalry and real soldiering in Texas, where he launched a punitive expedition against the Comanches.
Lee was in Texas when the South threatened secession. To his son Rooney he wrote: ``I prize the Union very highly & know of no personal sacrifice that I would not make to preserve it, save that of honor.'' But his tone changed in a letter to his cousin Annette Carter: ``If the Union is dissolved, I shall return to Virginia & share the fortune of my people.''
The rest is history. Lee turned down an offer to command the Union army and cast his lot with Virginia and the Confederacy.
Writes Thomas: ``At base Lee was more Southern than he was American. . . . He believed in social hierarchy, however much he tempered his belief with generosity and noblesse oblige. He was a politically conservative neo-Federalist Whig who did not believe the world was ready for democracy. He believed slavery was evil, but he owned slaves and resented criticism of the South's peculiar institution.''
Although Lee was a brave soldier who never recoiled from combat - sometimes taking horrendous risks that cost thousands of lives - he usually avoided personal confrontation. He was a shy person, shunning crowds and not given to public utterances. His personal life was beset by insecurities as a father and frustrations as a husband. His marriage of propriety was marked by long absences.
Lee lived for years among men, but his closest friends were clever young women with whom he conducted sometimes sensuous correspondence. Yet despite such flirtations, there is no evidence that he was unfaithful to his invalid wife.
Thomas sees Lee's greatness as his capacity to transform adversity into advantage. Throughout a life that included ``ample sorrow and catastrophic loss,'' Lee managed to appreciate the absurdity in the human condition, Thomas observes. This is a far cry from the apotheosis approach held by Lee admirers over the years, but it is one with which the current generation of realists may be more comfortable. MEMO: Barrett R. Richardson is a student of the Civil War and retired staff
editor who teaches English part time at Tidewater Community College. ILLUSTRATION: Jacket design by WALTER HARPER
Jacket photo courtesy of VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
by CNB